In response to various federal agencies ‘ pressure to blaze their newest hires in an effort to minimize employee staff, NASCAR managers are looking for a “blanket waiver” to keep temporary employees from layoffs, according to inner meeting notes seen by Bloomberg.
The desire comes after NASA employees had been prepared for reports of work cuts on Tuesday, according to six people with knowledge of the situation on Wednesday. But, no probationary people have yet been fired, according to the individuals, and the meeting notes said that” issues have stood down for now”.
A list of provisional employees, which are individuals who have been recently hired or promoted, generally within the last year, had been created by agency officials.
The initial list stood at 1, 300, including about 300 students, according to the papers, but NASA professionals have since whittled it down, removing experts, specialists and technical personnel to reach a remaining record of 200.
The notes stated that management does receive a “blanket exemption for NASA on temporary employees,” but they did not specify why.
The company employs roughly 18, 000 legal employees, according to a NASA site.
According to the gathering information, NASA officials are putting together a list of the people who accepted the White House’s delayed withdrawal offer. They estimate it to be around 740 people.
A NASA spokesperson confirmed that the agency is working to comply with the new directives coming from the , Office of Personnel Management , ( OPM), while figuring out possible exemptions.
” The agency is in the process of validating hundreds of employees who responded to the deferred resignation offer before the deadline” , , Cheryl Warner, a NASA spokesperson, said in a statement.
Some probationary employees have accepted the deferred resignation offer, and they have been placed on administrative leave by the end of the week, she said. “NASA is working with OPM on exemptions for those in mission critical functions during the probationary period.”
The specific numbers that were cited in the meeting minutes were not made available by a NASA spokesperson.
Since President Donald Trump’s inauguration last month, there have been numerous headcount reductions, primarily affecting probationary employees, across the federal government.
Thousands of federal employees have lost their jobs in the past few weeks, including those at the , Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, the , Federal Aviation Administration, the , Department of Veteran Affairs , and the , Environmental Protection Agency, as part of what the Trump administration calls an effort to shrink the size and spending of the , U. S.  , government.
The Department of Government Efficiency , is led by , Elon Musk, whose company  , SpaceX , receives billions of dollars in NASA contracts.
Given the potential conflicts of interest, Trump said on Tuesday that he would not allow Musk to participate in government projects related to space.
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